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Seated Buddha
China, Liu Song Dynasty (420-479)
Bronze. Height: ll 1/4 in. (29 cm)
George and Mary Rockwell Collection. 96.16
This small bronze altarpiece depicts the Buddha seated in a meditating
pose before a flaming halo, his hands placed in front and his crossed legs
hidden under an apron-like fold of drapery. The head and hands are oversized,
in keeping with early iconographic standards. Those standards and the stylistic
conventions for implementing them were developed first in the ancient region
of Gandhara, in northwest India, during the second century. Portable bronzes
like this example helped spread both the Gandhara style and the Buddhist
doctrine of compassion and salvation throughout China.
Cast into the back of the halo is a dedicatory inscription that dates the
image to 444 A.D. Two decades later, under state patronage, the rock-cut
sanctuaries of Buddhism began on an immense scale at several mountain sites
in northern China. Unlike these later testimonials to permanence and enduring
power, the smaller portable bronzes like the Cornell example evoked feelings
of gentleness, grace, and intimacy, qualities that initially did much to
help launch the religion and prepare the way for the later, more awe-inspiring
works in stone. |
